


Guarded

by lea_hazel



Series: Decline and Fall [6]
Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bad Parenting, F/M, Infidelity, Mind Games, Poor Life Choices, Power Dynamics, Revaire, Secret Relationship, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-21 18:14:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13746546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: Dangerous decisions made explicit. Verity regards the foolishness of her choices very carefully, and then decides to go through with them anyway. First chapter is setup, second chapter is action.





	1. The Training Grounds

She took care, now, to enter the library when she was fairly certain it was empty, and she never lingered long. She ought to have stayed out altogether, if she knew what was good for her, but if Verity had been prone to doing what she ought, she would have demonstrated it by now. She was smart enough to know better, certainly. Too smart for her own good, if the events of the Seven-Week Summit were anything to judge by. Perhaps that was the root of her problem. That curiosity, of all things, was what drew her to a man who, by all rights, she would do well to avoid.

Whatever it was that drew her to him, Hyperion was well inclined to take advantage of it for so long as she didn't come to her senses. Not that the affair was safe, by any means, from his side of the equation. No one was better equipped than the current King of Revaire to understand how dangerous teenage girls could be, when they put their minds to it. To say nothing of his wife, who would certainly eviscerate him in a variety of terrible ways if she found out her was pursuing the little Arland princess.

It was hard to resist, though, when she made such a lovely target of herself. It was in a hunter's nature to hunt, and Verity gave out all the signals of prey. That he could end up regretting it didn't seem to register when she was standing in the same room as him, and never more so than when she was in the company of his useless son. But Arlish girls are raised on a steady diet of duty and repression, and Verity dutifully stuck by her fiancé's side, however inconvenient it was to him.

So he decided to look for her where he knew she could be found. That is, wherever Jarrod happened to be. For all his uselessness, the boy still had enough sense in his head to keep up with his training. It was the only thing he had ever learned that he was actually good at, after all. And Hyperion knew that young society maidens were in the quite scandalous habit of ogling the young men as they trained. It was a safe bet that he would find her there, expertly camouflaged among the other, air-headed girls of the court.

Maybe he should have taken her disappearance from his path as a sign that their little game had come to a premature end. Maybe he should have resigned himself and picked out a new target, or simply moved on with his life. He was a very busy man, after all. In theory. If he'd had any good sense he would have left her alone, surely. This was what he was beginning to think as he rounded the corner and saw the blank space of the training yard stretched between white columns. Raked sand and a row of young men milling about, waiting for a real challenge.

But she was _there_. She was standing up on the balcony, looking down at the men below, standing among a small clump of other girls. She was wearing a well-fitted gown in some shade of green that brought out the green in her eyes, so that he could see it even from this distance. Hyperion hadn't even realize there _was_  any green in her eyes. If he was honest with himself, he hadn't spent much time looking at her eyes at all. At any rate, one glance at her was all it took to remind him that he desperately wanted her at his mercy, unlaced, unraveled, undone.

Still, he was a man, not a raw boy, and he could control himself enough to tear his eyes away from her for a few moments, at least. He cast his eyes instead over the training yard and the young men assembled. It had been years since he'd fenced for sport, at least with anyone other than his old fencing master. He couldn't remember the last time he'd come down to the open court to seek out a challenger. Would any of them prove an apt challenge for him? He doubted it. Age and experience beat youth and anger, any day of the week, but he could prove it again if necessary.

Jarrod was there, sweat-streaked in his shirt-sleeves but still standing idly, toying with his practice sword. He muttered something to the bruised young man who stood beside him, and broke into laughter. The bruises, it seemed, were his doing. At least the boy was keeping up his training. It was the least he could do.

"Anyone else care to offer a challenge?" he called out, in a voice that carried across the yard, and surely up to the watching crowd in the balcony, too.

"The champion stands undefeated!" said one of the others, and scattered half-hearted cheers rose from the crowd.

Hyperion took this as his cue to step out of the shadows. "That remains to be seen," he said, and was gratified to see shock, alarm, and not a little fear pass over the expressions of some of those assembled.

Jarrod's face, however, showed fear, rage and grudging respect in quick succession, before settling on an expression of grim determination. "Did you come to challenge me, father?"

Hyperion smiled and cracked his knuckles. "Do you think you can take an old man?"

A soft laugh ran through the crowd like a ripple, and subdued immediately when he shot a glare in their direction. With slow deliberation, he began unbuttoning the cuffs of his coat, taking one slow step after another into the yard. Jarrod took an involuntary step back, which made him smile, and accepted a towel from one of his friends. He'd been sparring since morning, most likely, and he would be tired and sore, likely to make beginner's mistakes. It was almost unfair.

All the same, he was going to do it, and prove his point. He abandoned his coat and jacket on a chair nearby and took up a training sword, weighing it in his hands, testing its balance. How long had it been since he'd swung a sword for any reason but to kill? Would he remember to stay his hand when his son yielded the match? Training did have a way of taking over from him, in situations like this. He felt oddly dispassionate about it, though he knew that the idea ought to have bothered him. Probably would have bothered him, at some point in his past, now too long-gone to pinpoint exactly.

But he was committed to his course of action, and had never been one to turn away from a decision once it was made.

He waited for Jarrod to call the first maneuver.

He struck quickly and ferociously, all boyish energy with no finesse and hardly any evidence of the years of training the sword-masters had beaten into him. Impulsive as always, and as always, a disappointment. Not eager to end the match too quickly, Hyperion dodged, deflected and feinted, which seemed to only make Jarrod angrier. Really, he ought to have put some more effort into curbing his temper at some point. It was clearly too late to do so now, even if he was only nominally a grown man.

They feinted back and forth a few moves, before Jarrod lost his patience and made another attack. He winced visibly when Hyperion's sword tapped his bicep. Only a training weapon after all, but he still remembered how much those taps could sting. Jarrod gritted his teeth and redoubled his attack. He drew out the match as long as he could, but it was a lost cause. The boy had lost as soon as he'd lost his temper, which was almost as soon as his father showed up. He would be useless against any real enemy, if he couldn't gain some measure of self-control.

Having lost all interest in studying Jarrod's technique, Hyperion rapidly disarmed him and leveled the point of the sword at his throat.

"Do you yield?" he asked.

It was merely a formality.

"I yield," muttered Jarrod, barely audible.

Hyperion dropped his sword and bowed neatly, forcing Jarrod to do the same to end the match properly.

"Keep working at it," he said, right before turning to leave. "You'll get it right eventually, with enough practice."

From the sound of scuffling behind him, that had elicited the expected angry reaction. The boy was really far too easy to bait. There wasn't even any sport in it. Which served only to remind him that he had come here today looking for a very different kind of sport.

 

* * *

 

Verity was watching the whole thing, of course. She hadn't the foggiest idea what had moved the King to show up all of a sudden and challenge his son to a sparring match. At least Gisette hadn't been there. She could only imagine how humiliated Jarrod must feel, and a humiliated Jarrod wasn't, as far as she was concerned, good news for anyone. Least of all for his betrothed.

Nerissa tipped her head over and murmured, "We got rather more of a show than we bargained for, I daresay."

Verity nodded mutely.

"It seems the royal blood breeds true after all," said Nerissa softly. "And here I thought all they had in common was their looks. One less count for you to worry about, isn't it?"

"Hmm?" said Verity, distracted by trying to track where the King had gone off to, after he disappeared from the training yard.

"You just got a glimpse of your future, dear friend," said Nerissa conspiratorially, "and it seems you have very little to worry about. If that's what your _future husband_  will look like in twenty years' time, that is."

Verity frowned. "If his father doesn't beat him black and blue before then, you mean?" she shot back, her voice soft enough not to travel beyond their intimate little social circle.

It was not the sort of thing one said in polite society in Revaire. There were a great many things in polite Revaire society, which everyone knew to be true and no one spoke of. That the Crown Prince was every bit as brutal as his father before him, but not nearly as smart, was often one of these things. It had taken Verity herself all of a day to observe as much. Now, though, she was distracted yet again from her musings by spotting two different figures disappearing in opposite directions of the palace grounds.

"Your betrothed has departed," said Nerissa softly. "If he's not headed for the baths, he must be going to the stables."

That made sense. He often disappeared on hours-long rides through the countryside when he was out-of-sorts.

"I... don't really want to follow him when he's in such a lather," said Verity hesitantly.

Nerissa nodded understandingly. "Go and lie low for a while, let it all blow over. He'll calm himself down in no time, I'm sure."

That cut their day's social outing shorter than Verity had planned on. Nerissa insisted, though, that she would have begged off soon anyway, to attend a tea at her great-auntie's house, down in the city. They parted with good words and a kiss on the cheek, and Nerissa set out for the city, while Verity set herself to tracking the second disappearing man.

She found him in an abandoned sitting room, pouring water from a steaming pitcher into a round copper basin. A crumpled towel already littered the floor at his feet, debris of his efforts to right himself after an unexpected exertion. He'd carelessly left behind his jacket at the training yard. With his back turned to her, it left Verity a short but well-appreciated moment to regard the figure he cut, divested of his unnecessary court finery. It suited him. She imagined he might have made a better soldier than a king.

"Is there a reason why you saw fit to intrude on my privacy, Verity?" he asked, not bothering to turn around.

If there was a glass hanging on the wall above the wash table, his broad back hid it completely. He can't have seen her enter, which meant that he must have heard her. Even in her soft little kid leather slippers, which made hardly a sound against the stone floors. Here she thought she was being so sneaky. Had she learned nothing on Vail Isle?

"And here I thought I was being so sneaky," she said.

He turned around to face her. "You'll never manage to surprise me, Verity."

"I rather thought I already had," said Verity.

That made him smile. "Fair enough."

"Is there some occasion that moved you to exert yourself so, today in particular?" she asked.

"Exert?" he said with a snort. "Hardly even broke a sweat."

The trail of sweat from his forehead down to his collar said otherwise, but Verity tried not to focus on it too much. It was distracting.

"Why did you do it?" she asked. "What have you to prove?"

"Why I did it," he said, taking a step towards her and throwing the towel in his hands over his shoulder, "is between me and my son. Nothing you need to worry yourself about, little princess."

"Isn't it?" she asked. "I think your son's business is my own, now. Or it will be, soon enough."

"Trust me, Verity," said Hyperion, "Jarrod won't thank you for meddling."

She clicked her tongue. "Show off."

He paused in his movements and regarded her, fixing his gaze on hers briefly before flicking his eyes down, then up again. "Were you not impressed?"

"By swaggering boys beating each other to bruises in a sandbox?" she said with a snort. "Not likely."

"Yet you were there to watch," he said, "weren't you? Weren't you standing in the balcony the whole time?"

Verity colored a little. "Nissa's idea."

His eyes narrowed. "Nissa? Your little friend, the pretty brunette, I take it."

She nodded.

He took one step forward, and it was all she could do not to flinch a step back out of sheer instinct.

"Why did you really come and find me, Verity?" asked Hyperion. "Not to berate me for beating my son at his own game, surely. No, I don't think you came here to talk about Jarrod. I certainly would rather talk about, oh, anything else."

"What would you prefer to speak of, then?" she asked.

He took another step in her direction.

This was a terrible mistake, realized Verity, but she felt rooted to the spot and couldn't have taken off just then. Even if sprinting out of the company of the King of Revaire _hadn't_  been disgracefully mannerless. Not to mention reckless beyond measure, though staying hardly felt any more safe. Her throat felt dry, suddenly and she swallowed, barely resisting the urge to lick her dry lips.

"I'd rather not talk," said Hyperion frankly. "Shall we play a game instead?"

"If you mean to spar," said Verity with an effort at levity, "I'm afraid I'll prove no match. I'm reasonably handy at Onvu, though."

"Really?" He looked genuinely surprised.

"I've had excellent opponents," she said, "to test myself against."

"Better and better," he said. "Somehow, you keep surprising me."

"Didn't you only just say that I would never manage to surprise you?" asked Verity.

Or, that was what she'd been meaning to ask. Only it was just then that he finally closed the distance between them. Like he had before, he cupped her face by the chin and tilted it up to look her in the eye. Not for the first time she felt the fog descend on her brain that always seemed to threaten her when he was in the room, and she felt sure that it would not be the last. His intense scrutiny brought the blood rushing to her face, but she had no idea what, if anything, he was meaning to find there.

He dropped his hand abruptly, like he'd been holding white-hot iron.

"Lock the door," he said, his voice hard.

"I beg your pardon?" asked Verity, mustering all the outrage at her disposal.

He let out a frustrated groan. "Don't be obtuse, Verity. Either we play the game or we don't. If you don't want to, _fine_. Now would be the time to turn around and leave. But if you _do_  want to, it would do well for us to have some privacy."

That was rather more honesty than she'd expected, and she felt herself rooted to the spot. Not for the first time, but for different reasons, this time. Did she really want to play this game, after all? She'd been tempted before, certainly. But after weeks of successfully avoiding being in a room alone with him, not knowing what he might do, or how she'd react, here he was. In the very flesh. Being uncommonly honest about exactly what he wanted from her, unless she misread the situation rather severely.

In three months she would be marrying Jarrod. She was a virgin. She was a Princess of Arland. She was too smart to fall for the machinations of a man who, by every account, was every bit as cold and cruel as his reputation. Even if he was an excellent kisser. He was married, and more than twice her age, and his wife was also a very dangerous woman. And for that matter, she had really no idea how he compared at kissing, since she'd never kissed anyone else. These were all excellent reasons to say no, to turn around and walk away.

She locked the door.


	2. A Locked Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Verity and Hyperion, a locked room, and privacy.

Hyperion didn't waste any time closing the small distance between them. He pressed his hand, large and warm, over hers on the door's handle, sweeping aside the hair from her neck with his free hand. When he kissed behind her ear, Verity's heart gave a little flip-flop inside her chest. It gave another loud thump when he started kissing a line down her neck, one thump for each kiss. Really, thought Verity, if things kept going like this their affair would not progress very far at all. She'd be dead of heart palpitations before the day was out.

"Why do you wear these high-collared dresses?" he breathed in her ear. "Is it specifically to irritate me? Because it's working."

Verity gathered in a deep breath and replied, "Not everything I do is about you, actually. It's the fashion."

She considered mentioning that his own daughter was a fashion leader, whose tastes determined much of what was in Verity's wardrobe, but thought better of it.

He took a deep breath, as if taking in her scent, and Verity's knees wobbled.

"That's mildly consoling," he said. "I'd hate to think that you were overtaxing yourself, thinking up ways to thwart me. Turn around."

She wriggled. "I will need a little space to do that."

Hyperion groaned, and she felt the sound reverberating down her spine and over her skin. He let her go all the same, leaving her only a little bit of room between the door and his body in which to turn around. Verity looked up -- rather a lot up, as she was forced again to remember how uncharitably taller than her he was. The moment she tipped her head back to look him in the eye he caught her by surprise with a fierce kiss, snaking one arm around her waist. Her eyes fell closed for just a moment and she made a startled noise, deep in her throat.

"There," he said, "that's much better."

Verity was still trying to catch her breath. "Is that what you came for?" she asked breathlessly.

He hummed softly. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I think things could still get _much_  more interesting. Unless you're bored with the game already?"

She half-gasped out a laugh, which made him smile.

"Good," he said. "Now come with me."

He picked out a seat on a small couch and, taking Verity by the hand, pulled her in until she was sitting in his lap. Once he had her arranged to his satisfaction, he combed his fingers through her hair and kissed her again, more briefly. This time she was not so caught by surprise, though her heart was still beating fiercely. She pressed her hand to his chest and found that his was, too, which gave her a small thrill of victory. This made him laugh, and he picked up her hand from his chest and gave her palm a small kiss.

"This dress is really very much in the way," said Hyperion, running a fingertip over the button that closed her collar.

"Do you know how long it took me to get into it this morning?" asked Verity with mock-outrage. "I'm damned if I'll let you undo all that work. I'll never manage to put it all right."

"Hmm," he said. "That rather defeats the purpose of locking the door, doesn't it? You might be right."

"I often am, you know," said Verity.

He laughed again. "Still," he said, "I think you'll be safe undoing just a few buttons."

He flicked them open effortlessly, sliding his hand under the fabric of her jacket to gently stroke her neck.

"Safe," he said again, "but not _too_  safe."

"Oh, I don't think there's any danger of that," said Verity. "I suppose if you're concerned, you could always threaten to have me executed for sedition."

"I would never do something so crass," replied Hyperion. "At least, not before I'd made you mine."

He pulled back her jacket a little farther and kissed her neck, which made her gasp and scrabble for a hold on his shoulders. He kissed along the line of her throat, slowly, undoing more and more buttons along the way. When he scraped her throat with his teeth she couldn't hold back a moan. The muscles all along her body felt tense and liquid at the same time, and she was very glad that she was sitting down, even if the proximity and warmth of his body was muddling her mind.

Still, she obligingly shrugged off her jacket and let it drop to the floor at their feet. Hyperion examined the delicate white lace of her under-blouse and sighed extravagantly.

"The laces on this garment are ridiculous," he said.

"Much as I might like to loosen my stays," said Verity, "that would be a terrible idea."

"You're being very difficult, Verity," he said.

"I'm not difficult," she replied.

"Your wardrobe is."

"The situation is," she corrected him. "I'd quite like things to be simpler, but I think if that were the case, you'd get bored of me."

"I find it hard to imagine you being boring at all," he said.

"Well," said Verity, "that's very flattering."

"I don't flatter," said Hyperion. "It's true."

"I guess I'll take it, then," said Verity.

Hyperion, meanwhile, ignored her and focused on hitching up her skirts. He ran his thumb over her stockinged calf, up to where it was tied off with a satiny ribbon, then wrapped his fingers around her thigh, just above her knee. It was the one part of her leg that was absolutely bare, and the unexpected touch made Verity gasp, sending a shiver trickling like a drop of cold water down her spine. Hyperion was watching her with an insufferably smug smile.

"You're too easy to tease," he said.

"Then why don't you stop teasing," said Verity crossly, "and do something about it?"

"Oh, I intend to," said Hyperion. "Spread your thighs, darling."

Even the words themselves made her pulse jump. Still, she complied, and in no time at all he had effortlessly repositioned her so that she was straddling his lap instead of sitting in it. His hands underneath her skirt moved freely and she had to bury her face in his shoulder to muffle her sudden moan. His shirt still smelled faintly of sweat from the sparring match earlier, and his hair tickled her neck.

He took advantage of her position to kiss her neck again and again, pausing only to say, "Now that's more like it."

Reason was rapidly fleeing Verity's mind. She was in a very compromised position indeed and the only thought her brain could muster was to beg him to compromise her even more. Which she absolutely did not intend to do, even if she had to bite her own tongue to stop it from blurting out the offending words. Instead she just kept moaning raggedly into his shirt, which seemed to please him well enough. His whole body shook with suppressed laughter.

"I suppose you did ask so very nicely," he said, "for me to stop teasing."

Verity gasped out her agreement.

"Don't worry," he said, as his hands slid up her thighs, "I won't ruin you completely."

At that point, she couldn't care less. Though she supposed she might, at some point at a vaguely later hour, if her senses ever returned to their proper place inside her head. In the interim, his fingers had discovered and worked through the slit in her drawers, and he was teasing her still, his fingertips just gliding over her opening. She was all too familiar with the feeling of slickness in her parts. If she'd been alone in her bed, late at night, by this point she would already be riding her fingers hard.

Hyperion had no such idea. He was intending, presumably, to drive her mad with lust to some unknown end, or perhaps he was just in the habit of being contrary. Her thighs were shaking with the effort of holding still, and her breathing was ragged and wet. At last he slipped one finger between her folds, giving it a few shallow thrusts that made her breathing quicken, if possible, even more. Still, he did not seem inclined to put her out of her misery any time soon.

"You are the most infuriating man," she gasped.

"How dare you, Verity?" he said. "I am on my very best behavior, and you can be certain it's all for you."

_If this is your best behavior..._  she started to think, but couldn't induce the idea to complete itself.

"If you want--" he started to say.

"Yes!" she cut in immediately.

"Then tell me what you want," he said, "and I'll do it."

Verity let out a soft, pleading whine.

"In detail, please," said Hyperion.

In a less compromised state, Verity felt sure that she could have composed a suitably sarcastic response. As it was, she felt more like a quivering mass of jelly than a human being. Her mind grasped after words she didn't know to describe things she was supposed to be utterly ignorant of. There was no lexicon for the language of female pleasure, at least not in any of Arland's libraries. A nervous giggle bubbled up in her throat, and she shoved it down ruthlessly, back where it came from.

"I want _more_ ," she said helplessly. It was the only thing she could think of.

"More what?" he asked, his voice soft in her ear while his fingers traced feather-light patterns in the fold of her inner thigh.

Verity tilted up her head and looked him in the eye. "I want you to touch me," she said.

"Like this?" he asked, his fingertips ghosting over her wet opening.

"No," said Verity breathlessly. "No, _deeper_."

Finally he thrust two fingers deep inside her and Verity stifled a cry.

"Yes, yes!" she said. "Just like that."

She pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle her moaning. His fingers moved inside her and Verity felt the muscles in her thighs tense and clench. When his thumb brushed a sensitive spot she shuddered and cried out, her forehead falling forward to rest of his shoulder. For a few heartbeats she didn't move, trying to catch her breath. Then he slowly withdrew his hand from between her thighs, which made her shudder again.

Hyperion flipped their positions easily and, with unexpected care, laid her out of the couch. Then he stood up and turned his back to her, walking back to the basin she had seen him using before. Verity was still while she put her scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. Her legs felt even more like jelly than before, and her throat was raw. She had no idea how she was supposed to make it back to her own room. She wasn't even certain how much time had passed. Wobbly-kneed though she was, she eventually managed to sit up.

Just as she was contemplating getting to her feet, Hyperion turned back to her.

"Verity," he said.

It was grossly unfair how easily he could affect her just by saying her name.

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, then cupped her face and kissed her. A drop of water from his hand slid down the collar of her blouse.

"You won't get off so cheaply next time," he said. "Remember that."

He turned around and walked away. Just before opening the door to leave, her turned back again and added, "Wait here awhile before you leave. I doubt anyone is watching, but all the same."

That left Verity alone with her rumpled skirts and erratically beating heart, trying to figure out how that could possibly be counted ' _getting off cheaply_ '. Let alone what, and when, and where the next time would be, or even whether she wanted there to _be_  a next time. But it was difficult to fool herself on that last count, not when her skin was still sticky with arousal under her clothes and the aftershocks of pleasure hadn't quite faded.

She splashed her face with water, trying to win back some semblance of composure. A small looking glass was hanging on the wall above the wash-table. She could use it to try and put her hair in order, or at least give it a shape resembling deliberate disorder. Ordinarily she would rely on a lady's maid for services like this, but the idea of asking her maid to put her to sorts after being so thoroughly ruffled by a man not her betrothed was laughable. She had really no one she could speak to about this, no one who could make her feel less insane for the absurd risk she was taking.

Constance would have understood, she felt sure of that. But even if she could get a letter to her sister without it being read seven times between here and Corval, she would never tell her the truth. Verity couldn't bear to disappoint her sister, as she knew she would be if she had any idea what Verity was doing. On top of everything else she'd done... She didn't really want to think about it.

For now, she could only straighten her skirts one more time and return to her room, to order her maids to draw her up a hot bath.

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy the POV shift. Second part is where things start to get warmer.


End file.
